


Out too Late

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's, Homestuck
Genre: (because Goatdad), Birthday Party, Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Humanstuck, I'm so sorry, Pizza, a scary time for all these poor kids, childhood fears, murdered children in possessed animatronics, parental neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 22:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11792874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza had seemed like a magic circus in plastic and recorded music to Gamzee Makara only just that morning.  But now, sneaking in at night with his friends Karkat and Terezi to try and chase down a vanished birthday present, something has changed.





	Out too Late

**Author's Note:**

> I think what happened was, I finally read "The Twisted Ones." And then I had this on my mind, and decided to do something with it... :P I hope you like it.
> 
> I'm sorry I put the Puppet/Marionette in with the original Freddy's game crew... I just really like their design, but also wanted to keep things simple with only a few animatronics. 
> 
> Have a great day~

Gamzee Makara had always looked forward to parties at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, ever since he'd been so, so small and decided to toddle up in front of all the other kids to hug the Prize Corner marionette. The stripe-sleeved, clown-faced puppet had hugged him right back, Gamzee was sure of it. He would keep on being sure, too, no matter how many of his friends told him he must be crazy. 

Freddy’s was a friendly place, after all, meant for belief and magic – familiar characters stepped out of Saturday morning cartoon-land to perform up on a stage.  The impossible was real enough, for just a little while.  Gamzee’s friend Karkat said Freddy’s pizza cheese tasted like greasy rubber, but honestly that was almost part of its charm.  The floor stuck to your shoes, squeaking as you walked; the buttery artificial lights kept everything looking brighter than it really was.  Some kids went to Freddy’s to tuck themselves away in the arcade, and some went to kick everyone’s butts at the in-person games and get all the Faz Tokens possible.  Gamzee had friends in both those camps, but he found himself still wanting to watch the animatronics’ show.  Freddy himself, with his jaunty top hat and calm, knowing expressions; Chica the chicken, all startled eyes, with mysterious fluffy fur instead of feathers; Bonnie the rabbit with his huge plastic guitar that didn’t seem to have actual moving strings… And Foxy the pirate fox, of course, who Gamzee always sort of felt sorry for because he was all alone behind a curtain, cut off from the world until his show began. 

Gamzee didn’t see anything wrong with a circus in recorded music, in robotic, whirring metal bones.  Everything seemed so simple and straightforward at Freddy Fazbear’s, back then. 

It was especially dumb, then, how Terezi Pyrope’s latest birthday at Freddy’s had ended so horribly.  She’d been all over the Walkman her sister’d brought back from that fantastical land called “College,” and when it disappeared after the cake she was pointing fingers just everywhere.  That Finger of Blame found its way to Gamzee, in the end.  Maybe because Terezi didn’t like how he was still bros with Karkat, who was practically her favorite ever… Maybe because he had “guilty eyes,” and a reputation for smuggling home finger paints that were supposed to belong to their art teacher Ms. Maryam. 

Whatever the reason why, Terezi had told everyone to hold it, hold it, and searched Gamzee’s backpack pretty thoroughly.  No Walkman, of course.  And then her friend Vriska – all shiny hair and biting words, from what Gamzee could see, though she _was_ their class’s best hope at winning anything field day related – suggested maybe Gamzee’d broken the Walkman.  She painted a pretty convincing picture – Gamzee spacing out, not able to wrench his eyes away from the awkwardly jerking animatronics at the front of the room (for reasons Vriska herself couldn’t understand, of course)… Maybe he knocked the thing right off the table.  Stepped on it, or something.  And then he hid the evidence, hoping Terezi would never find out!

The pieces all fit together, didn’t they?  So logically, the best course of action would be for Terezi and her trusted ally and sister – here, Vriska folded Terezi’s arm in hers – to search all the trashcans around.  Under the tables, too, and yes, even in the boys’ room.  They’d solve this thing together – it’d even be kind of like a treasure hunt!  (There had, apparently, been a treasure hunt at Vriska’s pirate-themed birthday party that year.  Gamzee had not been invited.) 

“Seriously?” Karkat sputtered, a little frosting on his lip, his brows all bunched together.  “You really think _Gamzee_ planned some kind of ridiculous cover-up after breaking a Walkman he just watched you fawn over for like thirty minutes?   You think he’d actually plot out how to hide Walkman pieces all over the place, where none of us noticed or caught him?”

Vriska leveled Karkat with a smirking stare, then, doing that amazing thing where she could raise one of her eyebrows up like it was on a little string.  Gamzee wished he could do that more than he wished he could magically be good at math.  “Oh, Karkat.  Are you saying _you_ thought all that through, instead of Gamzee?”

Ouch.  Karkat shot Gamzee a worried, apologetic look, so Gamzee kind of shrugged.  Oh, well.  You tried, man. 

In the end, they were still squabbling around and looking under tables and in every single soggy, grease-smelling trashcan when all the adults decided they had to go.  Another party needed to come in and use the room – they’d used all the time the Pyropes had paid for, and a stupid amount of it had been spent combing through napkins and stuff.  So everybody got herded out and into the parking lot.  Gamzee knew he was going to have to start walking home soon, though Kurloz wouldn’t even be back by the time he made it to their apartment.  Karkat might wait with him for a little while, stretching out the time before Gamzee had to go face all that emptiness alone.  They both knew Karkat’s dad was already parked out in the lot listening to talk radio, though.  He couldn’t hang around _too_ long.   

But before she left with her cool, college-y big sister, Terezi had an ultimatum.  She whispered it in Gamzee’s ear, her breath smelling like cherry Jolly Ranchers.  She, Gamzee and Karkat were all going to meet back there at the Freddy Fazbear’s that night.  They were going to search around and find the Walkman, or pieces of the Walkman, or whatever there actually was to find.  If Gamzee didn’t show, he was impeding justice and would pay accordingly. 

Gamzee didn’t know what “paying accordingly” meant, really, in a context like this.  He needed his friends.  They were the ones who’d look out for him, if anyone was going to.  Well, them and Kurloz, probably.  Most of the time.  They were the ones who’d let Gamzee look out for them, too, and that mattered at least as much.  Anyway, Gamzee shrugged.  Smiled.  He let Karkat explain all the many reasons why this was a stupid, not to mention illegal, turn of events.

Terezi waved at them cheekily over her shoulder, as her sister led the way back to an impossibly sleek red sportscar. 

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza didn’t look like any kind of magic carnival, walking away that day.  Gamzee didn’t know what it was that made the old place look so unfamiliar, so _cold_ from the outside.  The change just made him walk home a little faster, probably.  He practically ran past a man in a crisp purple coat – the guy stared after him just a little too long, though.  Gamzee would’ve sworn up and down about it. 

But then everything was okay again, back in the relative safety of his own apartment.  Gamzee kicked his backpack under the table; he peeked around to see if maybe his and Kurloz’s dad had decided to stop by.  Their dad had frizzy white hair and a long, raggedy goatee.  People in the bars where he went called him “Goat,” but that probably wasn’t his real first name.

It turned out Goat hadn’t come home that day, after all.

~*~

It was easy enough for Gamzee to leave the apartment when the time came.  Kurloz was holed up in their dad's room with his girlfriend Meulin, after all, and music thudded dully through their locked-tight door.  Gamzee wouldn't be surprised, later, when Karkat and Terezi described the crazy hoops they'd had to jump through to sneak out undetected.  Lots of disabled house alarms; lots of white lies meant to lull guardians into comfortable security. 

Gamzee'd just had to walk normally over the crumbly carpet and out into the night. He locked the door securely behind him, of course, and held an unlit flashlight like a weapon, like an almost-club. He didn't feel ready for the streets, for the dark, but at least he wasn't the first to Freddy's by the time he arrived. 

Terezi seemed so small, hunched on the curb in front of that closed restaurant. A dying streetlight made her long shadow crackle and shift, stretched out across the parking lot. Gamzee could only see his own shadow sometimes, and it seemed to be mostly messy curls, mostly the swinging flashlight. 

Terezi jerked up when she noticed Gamzee, and then said, "Oh thank God."  For a moment, it must've been as if Gamzee were some sort of stranger. The relief in her voice made it feel like Terezi actually wanted _him_ around, though more likely than not she just didn't want someone even worse. The thought was still a little like when a cereal box prize suddenly got shaken out right into your bowl, anyway. Usually, Gamzee knew Terezi only asked him along because he made Karkat more comfortable, or sometimes even because the name "Gamzee" looked a little like "game" if you squinted at it just right. 

"Good, you brought a flashlight," Terezi said, suddenly in control again and offering a wide, sharp smile. "I was afraid I'd be the only one who put two and two together.  Closed restaurant equals dark."

"It doesn't have batteries, though," Gamzee said, giving his flashlight a little practice swing. 

Terezi smacked herself on the forehead and mumbled something about how she really should've expected as much. Still, she reasoned, Gamzee _had_ flipped out pretty impressively that one time last year. He'd broken two of Equius Zahhak's teeth, even. Maybe it'd help them out somehow, giving him a bit of metal and glass that was only really good for bashing stuff with. 

"As long as you don't go rogue, of course," Terezi said, arms crossed over her chest, looking the exact way Vriska did staring down the enemy team in Capture the Flag. 

"I won't," Gamzee laughed. It was a louder laugh than he'd expected it to be.  He and Terezi stood with their backs against the pizzeria's wall until Karkat showed up, making smalltalk about nothing Gamzee would remember later. 

Thankfully, Karkat brought up the next step before they'd really said their hellos, before they'd admired the waiting stillness all around or had to talk about why there were two cars in the parking lot when there should've only been one night guard on duty. "Okay then. We're here. Congratulations, Terezi. Now how're we gonna get in?"

Terezi snickered, a new bounce in her step as she led them around the building, simultaneously coaxing and shushing them as she went. "Oh ye of little faith!" she said, a little boisterously for all the shushing. "It's like you think I've never broken in anywhere before!"

Karkat wrinkled his nose. It was hard to see in the dark, but Gamzee just _knew_ he wrinkled his nose. "Well, have you?"

Terezi didn't answer that one. "I left a window in the girls' room propped open just a little. No one will've noticed, and we'll get that open easy. Climb in that way."

"Ridiculous," Karkat huffed. "What kind of training are these night guards even getting if they're not sealing all the exits or whatever?"

Even before they got to the girls' bathroom window, Gamzee sort of knew Terezi would be right. It involved a lot of boosting each other up and scraping at the window ledge so paint flecked down onto the sidewalk; it involved a few of Karkat's fingers accidentally in Terezi's eyes, and Gamzee crunching his toes against one of those metal public bathroom trashcans that liked to hang on walls.  But they were in. 

They were in, and something was scraping its way down the halls right past the bathroom door. 

~*~

Karkat and Terezi had a fierce little whisper-fight about whether or not it made sense for a night guard patrolling to _ever_ make horror movie-ish nails-on-a-chalkboard sounds.  Gamzee peeked around halfheartedly in the girls' room trashcans.  No Walkman pieces, not that he'd expected to see any.  Maybe he'd sort of hoped. 

The thing outside the door had been gone for a few minutes before Terezi convinced Karkat that they had to at least check the boys' room trashcans before throwing in the towel.  Everybody gathered close around Terezi's flashlight, though.  Her hand only shook a little as they walked.  She said she'd noticed the security cameras ages ago, back when all Karkat had wanted to do was lose at foosball.  She could help them keep out of sight, she said. Maybe she was full of it, but Gamzee thought it made some sense that if _anyone_ was going to plan out the tiny fiddly details of a heist ages before any heist was even expected to happen, it would be Terezi.

The boys' bathroom was down the other hall, on the opposite side of the restaurant from the girls'.  Weird design, Gamzee'd thought before.  Maybe that was why there were always mops around, and propped up Wet Floor signs?

Some things about the pizzeria were the same by night.  Cheerful, scribbly pictures still lined some of the hallways, showing different kids' Happy Days at Freddy's.  Gamzee was supposed to have a drawing up there, somewhere, of himself hugging that prize corner marionette.  He had drawn what looked like stretched jester-paint triangles under its eyes, back then, but thinking about it now... Weren't those purple streaks a lot more like tears, like the poor guy was crying forever?

All their sneakers squealed against the tile with every step.  Karkat was the one who noticed how the sparkly purple curtains were wide open when they passed by Pirate's Cove.  He announced it in a cracking voice, like he was pretty close to screaming.  If they'd been a couple years younger, Gamzee would've leaned in to scoop up Karkat's hand.  Maybe that would’ve just stressed him out even more, now, though.  He bumped his shoulder against Karkat's instead, the way he'd seen Kurloz do with his friends.  Soundless.  Simple.  A little more adult, which Karkat would like. The goofy, worried smile wasn't something Kurloz would've offered up, but Gamzee couldn't really help it.  Karkat didn't smile back, but his lip twitched like he almost wanted to. 

"I heard Foxy was out of order," Terezi said, forcing her voice to remain slow and calm.  "And hey, there's a sign.  They probably took him someplace for repairs?"

"Maybe," Karkat agreed.  Neither of them sounded completely sure.  Gamzee didn't say anything, but he was pretty positive the curtains had been closed while they'd been there during the restaurant's living, happier hours.  He'd ducked in to wave at Foxy when no one was around to point out how he was getting too old for that kind of thing, for wanting to believe in Freddy Fazbear and his pals sometimes. But Gamzee wanted to believe in _so many_ things...  It was nicer, when you were able to believe.  Foxy could be "sick" to him, back then, for just a minute.  He could be sleeping behind a velvety curtain, almost like in a fairytale. 

All the show stages were empty, too, though - there were bolts on the floor where Freddy and his band were supposed to click in nice and neat, so they could appear to dance, appear to shift their weight from foot to foot.  Empty bolts on an empty floor.  Karkat started hiss-ranting about getting in way over their heads - about how Terezi _had_ to remember some of the stories people told about this place. About kid corpses stuffed into animatronic suits.  About people disappearing between all the bottled laughter and sickeningly sweet balloons made out of frosting. 

Karkat and Terezi were still snapping back and forth at each other when Bonnie the rabbit dragged himself, joints creaking, around a corner and up towards them.  His mechanical jaw hung distended, not singing or smiling, not bantering with Chica.  Nothing.  Bonnie tilted his head, watched them.  Really _watched_ them, Gamzee was sure.  Static rattled from his metal skin.  Not a voice, but maybe something like one.  

As he got closer still, Bonnie didn't smell like chocolate and vanilla swirl cake - he didn't smell like pizza, or even the plastic-y sweat of the ball pit and climbing tunnels.  There was a thick smell soaked deep into his fur, down to the shivering metal guts of him...  Like the back of the refrigerator got one time, when Gamzee'd forgotten there was supposed to be meat thawing for a dinner that never happened. It was all too easy to imagine flesh turned liquid, in that moment, seeping into Bonnie’s fur and sticking around so it could never be _really_ washed out. 

_Don't you remember what stories people told about this place?_

Gamzee remembered, yeah, even if he'd let those stories drip out of his mind like rain off a duck's back, before.  Maybe he only smelled the rotting because he was looking for it, expecting it. Maybe that smell was actually oil, oil mixed with musty fur, unwashed for a long, long time. 

But Bonnie's eyes were flashing, then, and he was leaning in to them and making all those frantic static sounds. One of his hands - the one not currently connected to his guitar - flailed back, almost like he was going to swipe at them. But no - no, he was pointing down the hallway they'd just come from. 

Terezi nudged Gamzee forward, hissed, " _Hit him!_ "

Gamzee raised his flashlight up like the club it really was, said, "Go _away_ , Bonnie!" as forcefully as he had ever said anything.  He tried to make his face look like it had when he'd broken down, when he'd gone after Equius with the pieces of that ruined swing.  

Bonnie went, then, against all logic and reason, shaking his head back and forth in painful spasms.  That one free arm kept stretching back towards the hallway, even as he hobbled away.  Gamzee felt Karkat physically relax, leaning into him just a little bit, patting his back.  If being able to chase away robots - chase away their classmates, too, sometimes - made Karkat like him better, Gamzee would take it.  He'd never meant to become like this, but now?  Of course he'd take it. 

"Okay, Terezi," Karkat announced, voice getting kind of shrill and much too fast. "New deal. I'm going to save up and buy you a brand new Walkman with a bunch of cassettes, and we're going home _now_."

Terezi nodded, silent, staring. 

"We better take a different hallway," Gamzee said. He was staring down the hallway they'd come through, trying to pick movement out of the shadows.  Nothing...  Yet. 

They were almost out when Terezi noticed the blood on the walls, on the floor.  It traced a path from a dark room, and as their flashlight panned towards that new darkness Gamzee closed his eyes so tight.  

There was a long pause, smelling sharp like iron, like Gamzee imagined the ocean might smell. Then Karkat guided him forward a little, said "Don't look, keep going," in a low, gruff voice that sounded a lot older than they were.  Gamzee opened his eyes just a sliver as they were almost completely past the door - the night guard inside had had his guts ripped out, thrown around the room like wrapping paper around a Christmas tree in the movies.  His insides were smeared into the fabric of his chair; his organs were bruised, clumsy things, soaking blood deep between the tiles.  Red fox-ish fur clung to the man’s skin in scraggly clumps.  His ribs had been cracked open, like a door. 

Gamzee only got a glimpse of it.  Karkat kept shoving him forward, like, "I already saw - you shouldn't have to."

And so they made it back to the girls' bathroom, and balanced precariously up on a toilet's tank cover to reach the window. 

"At least the security monitoring cameras were all ripped up, too," Karkat said, when only Gamzee was left standing on the tank cover.  Very grim.  Very practical.  "It's awful that I'm saying it, I know.  But any video of us here - _gone_.  That's something."

As Gamzee was just squeezing through the window and out into the night, again, the girls' bathroom door swung open behind them.  Human footprints, then, squeaking across the tile, just as theirs had a few minutes before...  But heavier.  Ponderous.  Those were an adult’s footsteps – an adult who hadn’t been that far behind them in the darkness. 

Gamzee, Karkat and Terezi ran all the way back to his and Kurloz's apartment, not stopping for breath, or for crosswalks, or for anything. 

~*~

Everybody stayed over at Gamzee's that night, for honestly the first time ever.  It was the closest to Freddy's, is why.  They'd risk getting in trouble for an impromptu sleepover in the sketchy part of town, they said.  Nobody wanted to walk home in that dark. 

"We should call the police," Terezi kept saying.  "Solving murders is exactly what the police are for."

"And what are they going to do, arrest an animatronic fox?" Karkat shot back. All three of them were draped on Gamzee's bed, which was just above Kurloz's empty one. Nobody'd said anything about the stains on the floor, about the way most of the lights didn't work, or the fact that the metal bunk bed had been duct taped back together a couple times.  Gamzee'd brought every blanket he could find that didn't belong in his dad's room and made a kind of nest his friends could climb into, if they wanted.  He'd offered them sodas, or cereal, or mini snack cakes. 

After a while, Karkat drifted off to sleep, face smooshed against Terezi's arm. It was hard to tell if Terezi was asleep or not - she'd snagged a pair of Goat's old sunglasses from the coffee table.  Maybe she didn't want anyone to see her face at all, just then. 

Gamzee took a mental photo of them, there - his friends, still breathing, half buried in blankets.

And then, after everything else that had happened that night, he was brave enough to knock on Goat's door and talk to Kurloz. 

It was so late, but Meulin answered anyway. Her hair was long and tangled down her back.  She was wearing a pair of Kurloz's sweatpants, and kneading at one of her eyes in a way that accidentally smeared leftover makeup on her hand.  She didn't seem mad at all, really.  She smiled, and ruffled Gamzee's hair.  Told him he didn't usually look so serious.  Drifted back and got Kurloz without a single suspicious question. 

Kurloz said of course he'd drive Gamzee's friends home in the morning.  He said it in a half-sleeping voice, slumped against the doorframe...  The way he smiled reminded Gamzee of how his teachers said he'd better be careful or he'd end up just like his brother.  If ending up just like Kurloz meant dropping all his plans to run random errands for his family, then _great_.  There were worse things to be than what everyone thought Gamzee was.  He’d never really felt closer to those _worse things_ than that night.  It would be on the news tomorrow, he felt sure.  Photographs of all that blood would flash by on the TV, after warning notices and stern reporters telling children to look away.  Maybe, by then, he'd be able to cry about it.

Kurloz told Gamzee to get some sleep. Told him that if he kept drinking soda so late at night, he'd miss his alarm and accidentally skip school again on Monday. 

When Gamzee got back to his room, Terezi still had Goat's sunglasses on, so he figured she didn't want to talk.  He settled in next to Karkat and took long sips of sugar water, trying not to think too hard. 

" _We need to figure out what happened there_ ," Terezi announced after a while. "You, me and Karkat... Or just me, if you guys won't help."

"We'll help you," Gamzee said, before completely processing what it meant. Even once he understood, though, he said, "I mean, we'll _try_.  Dunno if we'll, you know… You know."

"I think you were right - Bonnie was trying to warn us about that hallway."

Gamzee shook his soda can - nothing left.  He started fiddling with the little metal opener dealie, and pricked his finger. 

"Something's very wrong," Terezi said. "And _someone_ has to make it right."

Gamzee sucked the little bit of blood off his finger, nodding, nodding and only just then feeling like he could sleep for days.  He had one of the songs those Freddy Fazbear animatronics sang stuck in his head as he drifted off. He heard Terezi get up and close the window blinds nice and tight, and the next thing he knew it was morning. 

**Author's Note:**

> A big, big part of why this happened the way it did... Is I just really want Terezi to take down the Purple Guy.
> 
> Maybe this is sort of like her Purple Guy-vanquishing backstory, with Gamzee and Karkat all ready to be her daring sidekicks?
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!


End file.
